Don't Ever Look Back
by AccountAbsent
Summary: 1940s!AU. A compartment in the First Class carriage of a train on the New Haven Line. It is June, 1949. Blaine Anderson, a wide-eyed, fresh-faced Yale graduate, is headed West to a job in a prestigious law firm. The appearance of an impossibly tall and impossibly suave blue-eyed stranger considerably brightens up the journey...


_DISCLAIMER: I own none of the 'Glee' characters, locations etc.; they belong to FOX. All I own is the plot of this story._

* * *

Blaine was terribly bored. He had finished his newspaper as they'd steamed out of Stratford, and the heavy, leather-bound law books weighing down his suitcases, with their creaking spines and sharp corners, were intimidating enough to keep him twiddling his thumbs. It had been five hours since he had boarded at New Haven, waving cheerfully to the members of his old senior society who had come to see him off, and his compartment was depressingly empty: a chap who had looked of a similar age to himself, but whom Blaine had been unable to engage in conversation, had disembarked at Stamford; a woman and her young daughter at Greenwich, whom Blaine had insisted on helping with their luggage; and a cluster of rather rowdy businessmen at the Bronx, whom Blaine was sure had been travelling First Class by mistake. He now felt rather lonely, and consequently rather sulky, so it was with a furrowed brow and a sag to his shoulders that he shuffled over to rest his head against the window, drawing back the red brocade curtain and fastening it with the sash, as the train puffed languidly into Grand Central Terminal.

The compartment was deceptively small. It was panelled in dark mahogany, which gleamed when caught by rays of the late-afternoon sun, and the seats were a deep, plush crimson (though the velvet upholstery did little to alleviate the hardness of the wooden bench beneath). Four lamps, their shades blown from thin sheets of clouded glass, flanked the window and the sliding door. A gold bell to summon the conductor, similar to the doorbells found on houses in London, was fixed on the left of the door.

The shouts of harried men, the exclamations of various porters, the high-pitched calls of women on the vast platform were dulled and deadened by the thick pane of glass cushioning Blaine's forehead. It had rained briefly around Westport, but the sun had burnt hot and insistent all afternoon, and he could feel the sweat beading on the back of his neck. He tugged at his tight collar impatiently, fingers moving to loosen his tie before his father's parting words rang out, sharp and clear, in his mind.

_It's a man's world out there, Blaine, and you're one of the best of them. Keep your head, invest wisely, and remember that you are first and foremost an Anderson._

Blaine swallowed, and squinted critically at his reflection in the glass. With a sudden surge of determination, he smoothed his collar, tightened his tie, tugged at his waistcoat to straighten it, and ran a comb through his pomaded hair. He rolled back his shoulders, and sat up a little straighter on the cushioned seat. He was no longer a child; he was a man. He had graduated from Yale at the top of his class, and was bound for California with a coveted job at Loeb & Loeb LLP waiting for him. The firm had appealed to him because of its vested interest in and support of the arts- it had helped to establish the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences _and_ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer- despite his father's insistence that the arts had no place in his life.

_You've got to be sensible, son. You've seen how well Cooper's doing at Pillsbury Winthrop- it's equally possible for you too! The trust fund will only support you so far._

It had been spoken mildly, seemingly a mere off-hand remark, but Blaine had caught the slight threat veiled beneath the kindly, paternal tone- and as much as he hated himself for it, the possibility of disinheritance and the loss of respectability it would bring terrified him more than the prospect of a life without music and art.

With a slight jolt that had Blaine throwing out an arm to steady himself on the windowsill, the train moved off. Trails of wispy grey smoke curled past the window, only to be swept away swiftly as the train gathered speed. Manhattan sped past at a pace that took Blaine's breath away; the Chrysler and the Empire State Buildings loomed up menacingly from the concrete and tar of the busy sidewalks in this glittering city where every man, every woman, every child was free. Wives shopped, spending a husband's hard-earned cash; stockbrokers calculated, manipulating a company's shares and projected earnings; shoes were shined, windows were washed, motor cars rumbled along roads, all contributing to the great tidal wave of noise that engulfed New York, trapping it in a bubble of restlessness and fervour that bred invention and creativity. It was here that the great Broadway classics were conceived and premiered; here, the polio vaccine had been developed; here, the father of American railroads had been born. Blaine was almost tempted to leap from the train and begin his new life in New York rather than California, where the blessed anonymity would afford him possibilities greater than even the Anderson name could provide. For it was here, in this fast-paced city of opportunity that was so different to the sedation and stagnation of Blaine's native Ohio, that the great couples met, the great couples kissed, the great couples fought, the great couples broke…

"Excuse me," said a cool, slightly high-pitched voice behind him, "Would you mind if I joined you? Everywhere else is full."

Blaine turned around. A tall, lithe man, impeccably dressed in an exquisitely tailored light grey suit that highlighted the sharp contours of his willowy frame, stood on the threshold of the compartment. He held a huge suitcase in one pale hand, and the other was holding back the sliding door. A grey fedora cast a shadow over his face, but Blaine was able to make out the pair of impossibly blue eyes blazing like a beacon from below the brim.

"N-Not at all," he stammered, slightly intimidated by the impressive aura that pulsed from the stranger like static. He gestured timidly at the seats opposite him. The stranger smiled, close-lipped, and began to heave the suitcase into the compartment. Blaine, to whom manners and politeness were instinctual, leapt from his seat with such enthusiasm that he stumbled and blushed a furious scarlet.

"Let me help you with that, sir," he offered.

"No need," the stranger said shortly, and after a moment the suitcase was resting on the velvet seats. It was a heavy wooden affair, bound with cracked leather straps, quite unlike the stylish leather of Blaine's own cases which had his initials embossed in gold. The initials of the stranger- K.E.H. – had been daubed on in white paint.

"On second thoughts," said K.E.H. – whoever he was- glancing from Blaine to the case and back again, "I'll take you up on that offer, kid."

Blaine scowled at the diminutive- didn't this man realise that he was speaking to an ex-captain of the Yale Polo Team? – but stood up nevertheless.

"Just say when, sir," he said, taking a firm grip of the end of the case closest to him. K.E.H. took hold of his own end, and, on the count of three, the two men bent their knees and hoisted it into the luggage rack.

"Thanks," K.E.H. said breathlessly, tipping his hat to Blaine before collapsing unceremoniously into the seat his mammoth of a case had recently occupied. Blaine blinked and sank awkwardly back into his own seat, spine ramrod straight as he reached a hand up to check his hair. A nervous tic.

After several moments, K.E.H. sat up straight himself and removed his fedora. His face was thrown into the light, and Blaine was taken aback by the unexpected, yet white-hot, rush of attraction. The features were well-sculpted, almost elfish; the ears were slightly pointed, the chin and jaw strong, the cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Only the eyes held a hint of softness, yet even they burnt with a fierceness that brought the heat to Blaine's face when the man met his gaze. His skin was as pale as porcelain, though the cheeks were flushed a light pink with exertion; he seemed to glow, particularly in the deep red light of the evening sun, and Blaine felt as though the stranger before him was really a nymph or another ethereal being. Aesthetically, he looked too pure and unblemished to belong to the human race.

He was also a good deal younger than Blaine had originally thought. With his sharp suit, commanding demeanour and cut-glass vowels that rivalled Blaine's own, it had been an automatic assumption that he was a city man- perhaps in his thirties- who held a position of power. A bank manager, perhaps, or an innovative businessman. Or one of the many wolves of Wall Street- the secret millionaires. He exuded confidence in a way that Blaine had only seen his father manage. But the youthful face betrayed him; he could only be a few years older than Blaine himself.

"Would you like a drink, sir?" he asked hesitantly. K.E.H.'s right eyebrow arched, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"It ought to be _me_ buying _you_ a drink," he said, gesturing to the case above his head, "But how I can refuse what is so generously offered?"

Blaine felt himself grow hot about the ears, and made a great show of searching for his wallet. "Whiskey, sir?"

K.E.H. leant his head back against the panelling and closed his eyes. "Scotch. Neat, if you please." Blaine nodded, and grasped the ivory handle of his cane as he struggled to his feet. Wrestling with the stranger's suitcase had put a great deal of pressure on his knee, and it was beginning to throb.

"What happened?"

Blaine looked up sharply. K.E.H. had opened his eyes, and was looking pointedly at Blaine's leg and cane. It made him feel oddly self-conscious; he had become immune to people staring at him over the past five years, but the stranger's steady blue gaze gave Blaine the uneasy feeling that it could see straight into his soul.

"I got shot," he muttered, lifting his chin defiantly, as though daring the stranger to laugh at him. But his face remained smooth, impassive.

"War?" he asked casually, as though they were still discussing drinks.

"Normandy. 1944," Blaine answered curtly. K.E.H. nodded slowly, as though something important had been confirmed to him.

"Army, I suppose?"

"Air force."

K.E.H.'s delicately shaped eyebrows rose slightly, but he nodded again. "How old were you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Eighteen," Blaine said, proudly. "I'd finished school the summer before, and I got my commission straight away. I had my nineteenth birthday while I was convalescing."

"Rank?"

"First Lieutenant."

"Win any medals?"

"The Airman's Medal. And I was recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross." Blaine narrowed his eyes. "Not that it matters. There were plenty of chaps braver than me out there who weren't recognised simply because they didn't have a commission. It's as much a case of who you know as what you do."

K.E.H. nodded again, and it seemed as though the interrogation had finished. A silence settled between them, awkward and uncomfortable, and Blaine wasn't sure if it would be rude of him to simply slip out of the sliding door in the direction of the bar.

"So that would make you twenty-three? Nearly twenty-four?"

Blaine jumped, but nodded. He nearly fell over when K.E.H. stood up abruptly, smoothing out the creases in his trousers. He drew a thick leather wallet out of the pocket of his suit jacket. "Sit down then, Mr War Hero, and rest that leg," he said, and this time his grin showed off two neat rows of white teeth, "I'll get the drinks in."

"I can manage perfectly well, sir," Blaine argued, though his leg gave a sharp throb in protest, "The bar's only at the other end of the carriage-"

"How are you going to carry two glasses in one hand?" K.E.H. demanded, blue eyes sparkling. "I'm more worried about the fate of my whiskey than your gammy leg."

Blaine couldn't help but laugh then, and allowed the stranger to ease him back into his seat. Though the man's grip on him was light and careful, electricity was shooting through him, sparking and spitting at the areas of contact, and he felt quite light-headed as the blood rushed to his face.

K.E.H. straightened up. He examined himself in the glass of the window, brushing back a stray hair and flicking an invisible flake of lint from his shoulder pads. "And enough of the 'sir', there's a good chap," he said, without looking round. "The name's Kurt. Kurt Elizabeth Hummel."

Blaine almost laughed again, thinking it was a joke, but the man's face was as smooth and blank as it had been throughout the journey. "Blaine Devon Anderson," he replied awkwardly, holding out his hand as Kurt turned around. He shook it firmly.

His hands were startlingly soft.

"Pleasure, Mr Anderson."

"Blaine's fine," Blaine said, hoping that Kurt would think him daring.

Kurt smiled another close-lipped smile. "Well, aren't we two defilers of social convention? I suppose we should be glad that there are no ladies present." He turned to move out of the compartment, but stopped with his hand on the sliding door. "What's your poison, Blaine?"

"I'll have a brandy, please."

Kurt winked at him before gliding down to the end of the carriage.

Blaine wondered if this was what his friend Julian had felt like when he'd been hospitalised for shell-shock. Though he doubted that what Julian had experienced had been nearly as pleasant as the delicious warmth currently flooding through him.

* * *

"What's your stop?" Kurt asked him when he had returned with their drinks.

"End of the line," Blaine said, unable to suppress a shiver of contentment as the honey-coloured liquid warmed the back of his throat, "Los Angeles. I've got a job in a law firm on the Santa Monica Boulevard."

"Impressive," Kurt said, taking a sip of his whiskey, "Though you look a little young to be a lawyer."

"I only graduated from Yale last month. We holidayed in California a lot when I was a kid, and my brother's working in LA at the moment, so I thought I'd start off somewhere safe." Blaine wasn't sure why he was telling Kurt so much. Talking to him felt incredibly natural; he knew, by some strange instinct, that Kurt wouldn't laugh at him. "I'd like to work in Washington one day. Perhaps venture into politics."

It appeared that Kurt had no comment on this; rather, he downed the rest of his whiskey and set the glass on the seat next to him. "My father's a Congressman," he announced abruptly. He ducked his head as soon as he'd said it, as though he were embarrassed.

"How wonderful," Blaine said sincerely. "Though I can imagine that you didn't see very much of him growing up." Something the pair of them would have in common.

"He was elected when I was seventeen, actually- gosh, was it really ten years ago?" Kurt laughed giddily, a dimple flashing in his cheek. "Before that, he owned a motor repair shop which my step-brother took over. He was in the army, during the war."

Blaine waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, so he stayed silent.

"They wouldn't let me join up," he said suddenly. "They thought I was too delicate."

Blaine blinked at him, his brow furrowed. He wasn't entirely sure who 'they' were- the Armed Forces, or his family? And the man opposite him was anything _but_ delicate. He oozed a strength that made even Blaine's uninjured knee go weak.

"I went into Intelligence instead. I was rather excited when they told me- I thought I was heading out to be a spy or a hit man or something- but it was essentially office work for three and a half years." Kurt's eyes had clouded over, the blue noticeably dimmed. Blaine wondered if it would be ungentlemanly to reach out and take his hand. "I couldn't wait for the war to end simply so I could get out. Get out of Ohio."

Blaine choked on his brandy. "Ohio?" he spluttered. "Did you say Ohio?"

Kurt frowned, reaching over to bang him on the back. "Yes, Ohio. Why?"

"I grew up in Ohio. It's where my family lives. I went to school there."

Kurt's eyebrows shot up. "Which part?" he demanded.

"Westerville. I attended an all-boys private school there."

"Ah, I know Westerville. It's rather a contrast, but I hail from Lima," Kurt said, with a rather grim smile. "I went to William McKinley High School."

Something shifted in Blaine's brain. The name of the school was familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

"So what did you do after you graduated?" he asked. The light in Kurt's eyes grew even dimmer, and Blaine had to resist the urge to smack himself over the head.

"I was all set to head out to college- New York Academy of Dramatic Art, have you ever heard of it? – when out broke the damn war. I didn't actually get to New York until the summer of 1945. I was twenty-three, full of resentment- I wasn't in the right frame of mind to go back to school. My friend Rachel- Rachel Berry, you might have heard of her actually, she's starring in _Kiss Me, Kate_ on Broadway right now- had already made it. We graduated from McKinley together. She'd paid her dues in the chorus whilst she was in college and I was still in Lima, and she'd understudied some pretty major roles- I remember seeing her take over the lead in _Oklahoma!_ when I visited in the Christmas of '44. Pretty soon after I arrived, she landed the lead in _Annie Get Your Gun_. Opened in 1946. Smash hit. She was a star. Still is. I hear Rodgers and Hammerstein are going to write a musical specifically for her."

Kurt spoke wistfully. There was no bitterness or resentment as he recounted his friend's success- at least, there was none directed at her.

"Rachel managed to get me into the chorus of _Gun_, and then I understudied the lead in _Brigadoon_ for just over a year. I've done a lot of off-Broadway, of course," he added, as though determined to highlight that he wasn't just another failing actor, "And a director who saw me in _Brigadoon_ asked me to join the company of his new show that's opening next month. _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_, or something like that."

"I take it you said no?"

Kurt shrugged. "I was tired of the chorus. There's only so much swaying in the back one can do without it beginning to get a little dull. I had enough of that in show choir."

"Show choir!" Blaine exclaimed, clapping his hand to his forehead. "That's where I've heard about McKinley before! We competed against them a couple of times."

"Who's 'we'?"

"The Dalton Academy Warblers."

Kurt looked gobsmacked. "You were a Warbler?" he asked excitedly. "That's incredible! Gosh, it must have been… oh, gosh, it was such a long time ago…"

"Sectionals and Regionals of the academic year 1939-1940. I was a Freshman and you must have been a Senior. Wasn't that the year you won Nationals?"

Kurt nodded, laughing in a contented way that made Blaine feel warm all over. "What a small world it is," he sighed happily. Blaine was pleased to see that the piercing blue light was glowing full-beam again.

"I'm so sorry," he said, when they had both calmed down somewhat. Outside the window, the sun was blood-red and had sunk below the horizon almost completely. The sky was a cloudless, inky black. "I never asked where you're getting off."

Kurt winked at him again. "Los Angeles," he said cheekily, and Blaine felt delight thrum through him, "And from there- Hollywood. Ever heard of Gene Kelly?"

Blaine nodded. At his mother's insistence, he'd taken a girl from Yale who had been sweet on him to see _On The Town_ at the picture-house.

"Well, he's making another film. Promise this stays between us?" Blaine nodded solemnly. "It's called _Singin' In the Rain_. It won't be ready to shoot for a while, but Kelly's starring _and_ choreographing. He saw me in _Brigadoon_, and has asked me to come on board the production team as Dance Captain. Which means I'll get to lead all the group dance numbers in the film too."

Blaine could tell that Kurt was fighting to prevent his excitement from bubbling over the surface. "That's incredible," he said earnestly, "I'm so pleased for you."

Kurt blushed a delicate shade of pink. "You don't even know me," he pointed out.

"Does it matter? You've achieved so much in such a short space of time. That takes courage." Blaine smiled at him widely. Kurt's zest for life was infectious, and he could already feel himself beginning to look forward to his arrival in California. He would make his mark on the West Coast, then head to the capital and after that, who knew?

The sun had finally been swallowed by the dusty expanse of the horizon, and the lamps in the compartment flickered into life. Blaine's stomach gave a pointed rumble as he glanced down at his wristwatch: it getting on for eight o'clock. Had he and Kurt really been talking for three hours?

"Would you be interested in adjourning to the dining car with me?" he asked Kurt, a little breathlessly. The question hung in the air between them, and the atmosphere suddenly seem to thicken in a way that had Blaine reaching up to check his hair again, his palm beginning to sweat…

Kurt's eyes twinkled in the soft light of the lamps. He moved gracefully to his feet, and his considerable height once again made Blaine feel rather intimidated.

"The pleasure, Mr Anderson, would be all mine," he said, his voice an octave deeper than it had been a moment before. Blaine grasped hopelessly for his cane, stilling immediately when he felt a large, long-fingered hand gripping his shoulder. "You don't need that," Kurt told him softly, "Lean on me."

Blaine swallowed, heart beating frantically in his chest as he allowed Kurt to pull him to his feet. He accepted the proffered hand without hesitation.

For the first time in his twenty-three years, his first thought was not an internal debate of whether his father would or would not approve. It was of how much he enjoyed being on Kurt's arm, and of how wonderful- and oddly giddy- he felt when the long fingers gently squeezed his own.

_FIN_

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading._


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